I've discovered a "new to me" channel.

[bhryun]

I don't know how long it's been around or how many cable/satelite providers carry it but it's called iLife. I believe for the most part it's an inspirational channel (I really don't watch much tv except late at night). Anyway, one night when desperately looking for something in black and white (TCM was running something I didn't care for much at the time - gasp, LOL) I happened upon an old b&w on iLife.

 

It was a movie I don't think I had seen before. The film quality wasn't that great and the audio left much to be desired - but my interest was piqued. A few nights later I remembered my find and went looking for it again. Again, not a movie I was familiar with and film and audio quality was no better. I tried once more and found a slight improvement.

 

I was just wondering if anyone is familiar with this channels offerings. The program slot is called Hollywood Movie Classics. I'm thinking they can't possibly have that poor audio quality overall on all programming but that it's the films they have access to - perhaps a matter of what they could get for the $ they have to work with? There are a couple movie titles in this months selections that are familiar to me and I may try to catch them. Ha, I'm famous for missing anything I aim at catching! If anyone else is interested in what is offered or could maybe give me insight into why the films seem to be of lesser quality here's the link to this month's offerings: http://www.ilifetv.com/programs/hollywood_programming.asp

[bollywood101]

Thanks for posting this! I'm pretty sure this is the same afternoon movie program that runs on the locally-based bible-beater channel. I found it by accident several months ago, never having known they even broadcast movies, I don't watch the channel otherwise, having an abysmally low tolerance for preachers of any description. It appeared to be a syndicated feed, as was the Saturday equivalent, which runs a couple of westerns back to back -- the same type, and many of the same films, I used to watch after school in the 50s.

 

The movies seem to be mostly public domain stuff, though there is occasionally something newer -- usually religious. PD status may account for the wide variance in print quality; I wouldn't be surprised if some of the prints themselves are left overs from the earlier 50s, when films like this were a staple of tv movie broadcasts. There is, I believe, some technical reason, though I forget what it is, by which tv prints from the 50s are of substandard quality for modern broadcasting.

 

Nice to have the address for this station's schedule, as it's not published locally and I have to remind myself to flip the channel over if I'm at home.

 

Best,

MVS

 

[bhryun]

Thanks for the reply MVS. Putting little "clues" together - what you mentioned regarding print qualities and such... and the fact that the channel probably doesn't have the world's largest budget to work with - makes some sense.

 

Glad to have helped you out with the schedule. :-)